This invention relates to an automatic mail rejection feature in an e-mail program.
E-mail can be an inexpensive and effective way of sending information. Because of this, a recurrent problem is “spam”, or the sending of unwanted email to a certain person. Once an e-mail address gets on a spammer's list, the person can be barraged with junk email. Various attempts have been made to combat this problem.
For example, some web e-mail programs include the ability to block further mail from a specified sender. When junk mail is received from a specified address, the control is actuated. Further mail from that specified sender is then blocked, presumably automatically deleted or sent to the trash.
Certain laws also cover spamming, and require that each e-mail that is sent unsolicited have a way of unsubscribing from the list. Spammers combat both of these measures by continually changing their name and/or changing their return address.
Some e-mail programs allow a user to manually set criteria for rejection of incoming email. For example, if an incoming e-mail is from a domain that has many known spammers, many people may simply set their program to delete it. However, this has the unintended extra effect of also removing desired email, at times.
In addition, the automatic rejection feature does nothing to resolve the traffic caused by junk e-mail.